House Democrats Call for Strong Standards to Prevent Dust Explosions

by Mike Hall, Mar 4, 2008

Memorial to the 12 workers killed in the Imperial Sugar Co. blast.

The Feb. 7 sugar dust explosion in Port Wentworth, Ga., that killed 12 Imperial Sugar Co., workers and seriously injured another 11 who are still in the hospital, has resulted in renewed calls for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to create combustible dust level standards to prevent such explosions.

Yesterday, Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.), House Education and Labor Committee chairman, and John Barrow (D-Ga.) introduced legislation requiring OSHA to move quickly on a dust standard.

Without a congressional mandate, however, it doesn’t appear as though OSHA will move any more quickly than it has in the past when safety experts determined a standard was needed. OSHA Administrator Edwin Foulke told reporters Monday that before OSHA would act:

We need to have the documentation, we have to have the research, we need to have the evidence.

Here’s a question for Foulke. Aren’t the 281 dust explosions that have killed 119 workers and seriously injured another 781 since 1980 evidence enough that it’s time to put rules in place to prevent such deadly blasts and keep workers alive? Says Miller:

The tragedy at Imperial Sugar shows that the threat of dust explosions is very real at industrial worksites across America and needs to be addressed immediately. It’s unfortunate that it takes the Congress of the United States to tell OSHA how to do its job. The agency has known about these dangers for a long time and should have acted years ago to prevent explosions like this one. Workers cannot be asked to wait any longer for these basic protections.

In 2006, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board issued a report calling for mandatory regulations to prevent such explosions. But OSHA has ignored the board’s calls for dust level standards and instead is relying on corporations to voluntarily regulate themselves. Foulke said OSHA’s next step is sending letters to some 30,000 businesses about the dangers of combustible dust.

When dust builds up to dangerous levels in industrial worksites, it can become fuel for fires and explosions. Combustible dust can come from many sources, such as sugar, flour, feed, plastics, wood, rubber, furniture, textiles, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, dyes, coa and metals, and so poses a risk across a number of different industries.

About a quarter of the dust explosions have occurred in the food industry and last week, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), along with the Teamsters (IBT), petitioned OSHA to issue an emergency combustible dust standard.

The day after the Port Wentworth explosion, Miller and Rep. Lynn Woolsley (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Workforce Protections subcommittee, sent a letter to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao urging her to take immediate steps to move OSHA to issue mandatory rules on combustible dust. She has yet to respond.  

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